Even the Deep Ones Heal
by alijoe
Summary: While on hunt, Sam and Dean are ambushed by another pair of hunters who are after Sam. After patching themselves back up, the brothers have to deal with the hunters, and Dean has to deal with the information about Sam that they bring to light.
1. Chapter 1

Sam pushes the door inward with his foot and hauls a groaning Dean through.

"Not so hard, man," Dean moans. With one arm slung around Sam's neck and the other wrapped tightly around his aching torso, he couldn't do much else.

"You get gentle or you get fast, Dean. You don't get both," Sam snaps back.

Dean makes a face as he pulls away and collapses on the bed while Sam slams the door to the motel room, falling against it as he locks it and slides the thin chain into place. He peeks through the blinds of the window next to it.

"Anybody?" Dean asks from the bed.

Sam takes a long moment before responding. "No," he says, shaking his head. "I don't see anyone." He backs away from the window.

Dean rolls onto his side to face his brother. "Your back is bleeding," he mutters.

"No, Dean, _really?" _Sam retorts, reaching for the spot he feels burning behind his shoulder. He can't quite get a look at it, but can feel it under the blood. The single puncture wound shot waves of pain through his shoulder; undeniably from a bullet. "I think it's safe to say we weren't following a werewolf."

"You think?" Dean says angrily. "Who the hell was that?"

Sam shakes his head as he crosses the small motel room in a few steps. "I didn't get a look. My guess," he grunts as he stiffly pulls off his jacket and throws it to the side, "is Reggie and Tim."

Dean rolls onto his back again. "Ugh! Reggie and Tim! They're who caught up with you last month?"

Sam nods, and starts groping through the closet where they shoved all their bags earlier.

"Well, that's great, Sam! Anything else you maybe wanna share before you get us both killed?"

"Cut the crap, Dean. I had no way of knowing they were still following me!"

Dean doesn't respond, choosing to fume in silence instead.

Sam pulls out their duffels with his good arm and groans with the mild weight as he tosses them on the dresser. After lugging Dean from the Impala to the room, he's about ready to fall over himself.

"Look, slow down," Dean says as he sits up painfully. "I think we've got a few minutes of breathing space. Let's take it to get ourselves together." He stands up to walk unsteadily to the bags and starts digging through them.

Sam turns to the sink to splash water on his face, but watches Dean in the mirror. "Dean, what are you doing? You need to sit down before you pass out again."

"I didn't pass out before," Dean retorts. "And you have a bullet in your shoulder that needs to come out."

"Well, you're sure as hell not digging around in my shoulder while you're seeing stars."

Ducking into the bathroom to find something semi-clean, Sam wraps one of the threadbare towels around his shoulder and ties it with his teeth to slow the bleeding. Then he pulls an ice pack out of the cooler in the closet and throws it on the dresser next to Dean. "Sit down."

Dean's face twists in pain as he sits back down on the bed, holding the ice pack to the back of his head.

"Does anything feel broken?" Sam asks as he grabs one of the bags and a towel, and goes to stand next to the bed.

"Everything feels broken."

"Can you breathe?"

Dean nods.

"Then don't be such a baby," he huffs.

"Know what? Anytime you wanna catch a bookshelf to the face in my place, you be my guest!" Dean gingerly raises his shirt on one side. "Just tell me nothing needs stiches."

Sam grits his teeth as he slowly kneels beside the bed. The surrounding skin on along Dean's ribs was already turning black and blue, but only broken in a few places. They're more scraps than gashes, and all pretty shallow, despite the amount of blood they were leaking. "No," Sam says at the stitches. "I think you're good." He folds the rag and hands it to Dean, who puts it against the scraps and pulls his shirt back down over it. "How's your head?"

"Clearer." Dean tosses the ice pack down and stands up. "Your turn. Let me see your shoulder."

Sam raises an eyebrow doubtfully.

"Come on, come on," Dean presses, indicating Sam to turn around.

Sam slowly sits on the bed and peels off his shirt and towel. He feels Dean pull at the sides of the throbbing wound as he examines it, and he stiffens a bit.

"Well, obviously it didn't go through and you're not dying, so it probably hit bone," Dean says eventually. He presses the towel against the wound and puts Sam's hand over it to hold it in place. "I'll be right back."

Sam hears Dean move the blinds around to look out before going out the door. Less than a minute later, the door opens again, and Dean's back, carrying a bottle of whisky. Then Sam catches sight of a thin knife in his other hand and groans.

"Sorry buddy," Dean says, sounding generally apologetic. "Couldn't find the pliers, and this was the first thing I could get my hands on; I didn't want to spend too long digging around in the car." He puts the bottle on the dresser. "There's a car out there."

Sam blinks at him. "A car, as in a car of significance?"

"Would I mention it if it wasn't? It looks familiar and it wasn't there a few minutes ago." Dean starts rubbing the edge of the knife against the chipped stucco brick that makes up one wall of their motel room.

It takes Sam a moment, but he realizes that his brother is trying to dull down the blade. He takes a deep breath as he watches Dean. "Was there anyone in it?"

"I couldn't tell, but no one is bothering to hide it." Dean blows on the knife edge and tests it against his finger. Then he picks up the bottle and pours a little bit of the alcohol over the blade. "I think they're waiting for us to run."

"Terrific."

Deans takes a swig from the bottle. "Here you go." He hands it to Sam over his shoulder. "You're probably gonna want that in a second."

Sam sighs, and takes it.

"You want something to bite on?"

Sam gives him a look.

"Just thought I'd ask." Dean pushes Sam's hand holding the towel away from his shoulder.

Reluctantly, Sam moves his hand and takes a drink of the whisky. He feels the knife and tenses, then grips the edge of the bed and clenches his jaw as Dean starts searching deeper for the bullet.

Dean doesn't bother to go slowly, opting for speed rather than gentleness.

While Sam's grateful for this, it doesn't lessen the pain that's intense enough to taste that shoots through his shoulder when the tip of the knife nudges the bullet. He gives a short yell of pain.

"Found it," Dean goes.

"Uhh," Sam growls through his clenched teeth. "Yeah, noted."

Dean feels around for a few more minutes, but can't work the projectile to the surface.

"Dude," Sam starts to say, pulling away. "You gotta stop."

"No, wait, I almost got it," Dean lies. He pauses. "Alright, just…" he leans over Sam's shoulder to look his brother in the eye. "Hold still. And don't hit me."

Sam doesn't have time to respond before Dean pushes a finger into the bullet wound alongside the knife.

Sam almost goes through the roof. "Aarhhh," he yells out as he makes a conscious decision not to smash the whisky bottle upside his brother's head.

Dean hurriedly locates the bullet and, between the knife and his finger, manages to draw it out. "I got it, I got it," he says quickly, pressing the towel into the wound again to staunch the fresh bleeding. He tosses the knife and smashed bullet onto the mattress. Then he starts digging though the bag with one hand, still holding the towel in place with the other.

Sam focuses on breathing and tries to ignore Dean, taking another, longer sip off the bottle while Dean pulls a needle and some nylon thread from the bag.

This particular needle was actually a sharp fishing hook that Sam had clipped the barb off. They used it for deeper cuts. "Looks like you're not so lucky on the stitches. Hold this," Dean says indicating the towel.

"Just hurry up before I change my mind about ever letting you near me again."

"Now who's being the baby?" Dean threads the hook before swiping the alcohol away from Sam for a moment to douse the items. Then he moves the towel and starts sewing.

Sam doesn't comment, while Dean continues to works in silence.

Eventually, Sam takes one last drink, then sets the bottle of whisky on the floor. "So, you said they're waiting for us to run?"

"Mmhmm," comes the response.

"That's a terrible idea."

"Mm," Dean shrugs. "Better than raiding us head on, don't you think?"

"It's what they did to me in Oklahoma."

"There was only one of you then, and they had leverage, right?"

"Yeah, but they've got leverage here."

Dean snips the thread and pours whisky over the stiches, prompting a sharp inhalation from Sam.

"I mean," he continues as he takes the towel from Dean and holds it almost protectively over the sutures. "We're not exactly in top fighting shape right now."

Dean picks up the ice pack again and collapses on the other bed. "So what's your point?"

"My point is," Sam turns his head to look at Dean. "Do we spring their trap or set our own?"

* * *

A/N

Keep an eye out for the second and final chapter coming real soon to see how the brothers deal with Reggie and Tim.

Any feedback's appreciated and thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Reggie smacks Tim awake.

"What, what?" Tim says irritably, but quickly notices the door to the Winchester's room opening and shuts off the radio.

Dean is coming out of the room and walking quickly towards his car, parked about eight feet from their door. A blood soaked towel is thrown over one shoulder, and he's wiping more blood off his hands with an equally bloody rag.

Tim clears his throat and sits up straighter in his seat. "That doesn't look good."

"It does for us," Reggie retorts.

Dean's holding his cell to his ear with one shoulder, so Reggie cracks his window. The pair of men are parked only about a dozen feet away, under a broken light pole. It's the middle of the night and the parking lot is quiet, so the men can just make out Dean's words.

"I dunno, Bobby, Sam said he never got a look either. But someone was definitely waiting for us."

"Singer," Tim whispers, and Reggie nods.

"Not good," Dean goes on faintly. He's fumbling with his keys by the car now. "He got tagged in the back. Bullet's out, but I can't tell what all it hit on the way through. Hell of a lot of blood." Dean's voice shakes by the end and he drops the keys.

He sighs and leans against the car, noticeably trying to calm himself. "I know. I know, Bobby. I don't have the supplies to deal with this, though. I think there's a drugstore around the corner from our motel. No, I bandaged him up as best I could, but he's out for now."

Reggie glances at Tim, then back at Dean.

"He'll be alright for 10 minutes," Dean says as he picks up his keys and unlocks the car. "As long as he doesn't bleed out. I'll call you in an hour with an update."

Reggie and Tim slump down in their seats as Dean drives off in the Impala.

"I _thought_ I hit him," Tim says assertively, once Dean disappears around the corner.

"Looks like it," Reggie says, turning to him. "Maybe we don't have to take them both out. If we go in now, we can take out Sam before Dean gets back."

Tim considers this a moment. "I don't know; Sam sounds pretty bad off. Maybe if we wait, he'll pass on his own. I don't like the idea of taking out a guy when he's already down."

"Well, I don't like the idea of taking out a guy for something his brother did."

Tim shakes his head. "Who says we have to?"

"We can't leave here with Sam still alive," Reggie says with finality. "The werewolf thing was a lucky draw; I doubt we'll ever get another case where we end up like that again. If we wait too long now and Sam ends up pulling through, that means we have to raid them _both_ _–_ _again_ – to take him out. You heard Dean; right now, they don't know who's after them, but if we go in head on now, they will. Once that happens, what do you think is gonna happen if we leave Dean alive? You think he's just gonna say, 'I know you killed my brother, but don't worry, we're square'? You know he won't. And I am _not _living the rest of my life with a pissed off Dean Winchester on my tail." Reggie shook his head. "At least monsters and demons have rules to play by."

Tim sighs.

"I know you don't want that either. One bullet in Sam's head now, we get out clean, and Dean doesn't know who to go after. But we have to go now."

Tim hesitates, then reaches down at his feet and picks up his handgun. Checking the clip, he rams it back in place and nods at Reggie. "All right. But we move fast and quiet. I don't want Sam to see us coming either."

Reggie nods and glances around cautiously before climbing out of the car.

At the door, Reggie pulls out a lock picking kit.

"Hurry up," Tim urges quietly.

"Relax, the locks are cheap," Reggie responds, inserting the pins. Less than a minute later, he twists the knob open.

Tim goes in first, gun ready, and Reggie follows closely.

Sam's lying on his side on the bed farthest from the door, facing them, but with eyes closed, unconscious. Bloody rags and tools are scattered around on the floor and bed.

An anti-possession symbol tattooed on Sam's chest catches Reggie's attention as he and Tim draw closer, and Reggie feels momentary a pang of regret; for all the awful he's done, this had once been a fellow hunter.

Tim must be thinking something similar. "Sorry about this, Sam," he whispers as he aims his gun.

Suddenly, Sam opens his eyes and slaps the gun out of Tim's hand.

"You know, I don't believe you," comes a voice from behind Reggie. He barely manages to turn to see Dean coming at him with something in his hand before blackness floods his mind.

* * *

Reggie opens his eyes and groans at the pain in his head.

"You two are a pair of idiots."

Reggie looks behind him to find the owner of the voice and feels his hands tied securely together behind his back, and arms at his side. He looks down to see his feet are in the same situation. He's in a small, dark room with shelves lined with tools. Some kind of maintenance closet, maybe.

Dean comes around from behind Reggie, rewrapping a short length of rope around his arm. He just came from loading the rest of the bags in the car and came back to find Reggie coming around.

"What kind of hunters don't even check out where the people they're hunting are staying? A look in any _one_ of the rooms and you see they all connect. All I had to do was set a little bait, double back through another room, and you two come a-runnin'." Dean tosses the rope on the floor next to a duffle bag. "Of course, I suppose that begs the question of what kind of hunter hunts people. Especially other hunters."

Reggie rolls his neck. "We were just hunting Sam."

"Oh, right," Dean says, mockingly. "He told me how you and Tim went off the deep end after you got your ass handed to you by a pack of demons." Dean squatted down. "From what I've seen here, I'm not surprised. What, you– you forget to check out the area then too? Did you walk into something you weren't prepared for and, instead of blaming yourselves for losing a friend, you decide to blame the guy who told you there was something going on?"

"If you actually believe that," Reggie retorts. "Then you're gonna get an ugly wake-up call about that monster you call a brother. Then again: it looks like all of humanity already had."

Dean stares hard at Reggie, then decides to drop the charade. "Look," he starts. "Sam regrets what he did. He knows he made a mistake, but it _was_ a mistake. YOu oughtta be more careful when you're running around with only half the story." He stands again. "Sam was lied to and manipulated into doing what he did. Now he's doing everything he can to fix it."

"No," Reggie says, shaking his head. "He had a chance to do _everything_ he could. And he didn't take it."

Dean crosses his arms. "What do you mean?"

"After Steve died – after _Sam_ got him killed – we went back to him, or didn't he tell you?"

"Yeah, he told me. Told me you kidnapped some girl that worked at that bar and threatened to kill her if Sam didn't come out with you. You're a real saint."

"We gave him _everything,_ Dean," Reggie snarls. "We heard all about his little gift. He didn't just kill that demon before; he strangled her from the inside!"

Dean's face slowly goes blank, and he's left too caught off guard to figure out a way to respond.

"So we get him a little present," Reggie goes on. "Just a little vial of the stuff, but from what we heard, it was more than enough. And we took it back to him."

Dread forms in the pit of Dean's stomach.

"The girl was just insurance; we wouldn't have hurt her. But Sam–" Reggie nods furiously. "Sam was going to help us. It was his duty! And you know what he did, Dean?!" he asks angrily. "Do you know what your brother did when we had to force him to do what was _his_ responsibility? _When we had to force him to take it?_"

_No_, Dean thinks vaguely. The dread had boiled over into horror. Was Sam back on the blood?

"_He spit it in our faces!"_ Reggie roars.

Dean stares.

"It was his responsibility! His mistake got Steve killed!"

Dean's only half listening now.

"And he had the power to make it right if he only had the _guts _to use it!" Reggie shakes his head. "Only he _didn't_. So you claim he's doing everything he can to make it right, Dean?"

_He's not back on the blood._

"You _claim _he knows it's his job, and that he's trying?"

The horror is shifting around now.

"Because it doesn't look like it from where I'm sitting."

It's getting replaced; with rage.

"Or from where Steve was laying, dead in the road!"

Dean stands, unsteady, beside Reggie for a long moment. Then he steps up behind the man's shoulder, pressing his knife to the older hunter's throat, and leans close.

"I really don't care what it looks like to you," Dean growls. "I don't care... about your opinion of his actions, or what you've_ deemed_ is his responsibility. I don't care how you justify what you did. Or how you justify killing him, or me, or anyone who gets in the way of _your responsibility_. What I know, though, is that you're gonna leave us alone now. You're gonna stop following my brother, and you're gonna let me and him do what we need to do. Or…" Dean leans closer, so he's breathing right in Reggie's ear and whispers, voice heavy and fierce.

"Or I'm gonna come after you. And I am not as sloppy as you and Tim. You will never even see me coming."

Then he strikes Reggie hard in the back of the head with the handle of his knife, and Reggie collapses to the ground.

Dean watches the man for signs of consciousness, then, satisfied that he's out, kneels down to check the ropes. And think about what Reggie said.

Dean remembers Sam going through detox from the demon blood. He'd screamed for hours, begged, manipulated, had tried anything to be let out. The first time, when Cas let him out, he dove right back into it. Sam may have gotten the benefit of a heavenly detox, but if there's one thing Dean learned from the run in with Famine, the horseman, it's that his brother was always craving for it. Maybe not to the extent that Famine's curse had brought out, but on some level...

Reggie was right about one thing: he and Tim had trapped Sam on every side. They'd had a hostage, two strong hunters, a crapload of demons surrounding them, against only Sam – who'd only been off the blood for a matter of weeks. Add that to the guilt they just shoved down his throat about Steve, and that they practically did the same with the demon blood...

The fact that Sam still came out of that clean... it mended something that had been off between him and Sam for a while. Ever since Ruby had reared her manipulative little head. Dean realizes what that must've taken from Sam.

"Dean?" Sam came around the corner. He sees Reggie, bound and unconscious on the floor.

"Hey," Dean responds, watching him. Bringing himself back to the present, he asks. "Tim taken care of?"

Sam nods and indicts back over his shoulder. "Tied up in the bathroom."

Dean clears his throat. "Good." He pulls Reggie further into the corner.

"Everything okay?" Sam asks carefully.

Dean smiles as he walks towards Sam to leave the room. "Yeah. Feeling way better now."

Sam looks a little unsure, but nods.

"Let's clear out of here before they come around." Dean pats the back of Sam's shoulder once as he walks by and notices Sam flinch at the touch. Dean pulls his hand away to see a little blood left it from Sam's back. "You're bleeding again."

"Yeah," Sam answers, rolling his shoulder carefully. "It opened again when I took down Tim. I'll deal with in in the car. It'll heal."

Dean nods. "Yeah." Even though Sam isn't looking, he smiles again. "Yeah, everything does."

* * *

A/N

I hope you all enjoyed it! Don't forget to review! I love hearing for you all!


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